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~ 1 ~ 1847, Rye, England
 "Some stories can't be told until after you're dead. This is one of them."
Lucas Grey put his hand over his chest and felt for his heartbeat, then continued his explanation. "Either I wasn't a real vampire, or the legends were wrong. Either way, I'll tell you what I know." His pale grey eyes shifted uneasily in the darkness, wondering where to begin. He paused to scratch at the thin beard and mustache perpetually growing on his young, tired face.
"Nothing is absolute," he began tentatively. "No one is completely innocent, and the guilty are rarely as evil as we think. More secrets exist between heaven and earth than all the angels have ears to hear." He paused and nodded, showing his fangs for emphasis, "I am a vampire. Know who I am, and what I am, so you can appreciate what you are about to become."
There was no reply. He waited. The silence of a crypt engulfed him. Death was present this evening; hovering, waiting. If he was troubled by the mournful sound of a woman sobbing in the corner of the room, he did not betray his emotions. He turned his back to her and continued, "You should know your family. Family is everything." Lucas cast a bittersweet smile over his shoulder, enjoying the irony, then he continued, "It began in 1813, the night my father killed my mother. I was nine." Lucas hesitated, remembering the night as if it had been yesterday.
"By 1813, my father's Inn, The Lorelei's Call, had already developed a reputation with pirates and smugglers. There were those who said that my father, John Grey, had stolen and used all of my mother's money to buy the Inn; I was one of those people. He wanted to expand it, to transform it into a landmark, a dark beacon of the times, like a lighthouse announcing the decline of the great Western Civilization. There were those who said that he was unable to do that as long as my mother was alive. They said my mother, Cecilia Grey, held some special power over him. Some people said that this power was love, something which did not seem to come naturally to my ugly, foul-tempered father. Others said that her power was something else: perhaps an additional inheritance which she would not freely deliver."
Lucas paused one final time. He knew if he continued, he would not stop until the entire story was told. He tapped his foot for a moment on the clean wooden floor and folded his arms across his chest. The only sound in the room was the perpetual sobbing. There was a slightly salty pungent smell of fever in the air. He cleared his throat and went to the window. He watched people in black clothes keeping vigil on the street, and others walking alone in sorrow and fear. Horse drawn carriages somberly carried away multiple coffins into the night. This was not his doing. Not this. His story may have involved death and murder, but not these. Not now. The pain exploded from the memories of his past. He needed to tell her everything, before she died. He had decided. The story would be told. Without leaving his post at the window, he began.
 "That night, I was hiding upstairs in my room. As usual, my father was shouting at my mother. They were several rooms away, at the end of the hall. In the dark, I listened through a crack in the door. Their words were drowned out by the sounds of music, laughter, and drunken chatter from the pub downstairs. It sounded like a struggle, perhaps a slap. I heard my father swearing repeatedly. My mother was silent. She was always silent. Like a serene portrait of the Madonna, she always appeared to accept her fate at my father's hands, as if she deserved it, as if she enjoyed it. I thought I heard bodies slamming against walls, then doors banging awkwardly open and shut. My father's voice was getting closer; it made me cringe and tremble. He was dragging something and swearing under his breath. I felt my throat go dry; the skin inside my neck was sticking together as I tried to swallow. I stepped away from the crack in the door, afraid to be seen. My father came into view, walking backwards, bent over like a hunchbacked sailor. He was dragging something. He was dragging my mother. I forgot to breathe. I had already seen him do many horrible things in the nine years I had lived, but this, I knew, was different. This was much, much worse. My mother's hands were clasped over her breast as if in prayer. I pressed my eye against the crack in the door and a closer look revealed she was bound with twine. Her skin was pale, like an alabaster angel. Her eyes were sad but accepting, forgiving. My father, in contrast, was frenzied, drunk, and angry to the point of tears. I saw my mother look up and tell my father softly, with apparent remorse and a hint of fear, 'I take it back. It's not too late. You don't need to do this.' It was as if she were absolving him of his guilt with her words; taking responsibility for his actions.
"I wanted to run from my hiding place and stop my father, but I was frozen in terror. My hands shook at my side. My feet were cemented to the floor. I had not remembered to breathe. My lungs caught up with me and I let a tiny cough escape. It was too quiet for the dulled senses of my drunken father to hear; but my mother's eyes, like the eyes of a cat, glided away from my father and landed on the crack in the dark open doorway. She smiled at me, urging me not to worry or be sad. I could feel her embracing me with her smile. Her lips began to part as if she were about to tell me something. When my father noticed the odd expression unfurling across her face, he slapped her. Hard. The last thing I saw before she was dragged away was the trickle of blood rolling from the corner of her lips.
"At that moment, my innocence died. I began living a life of hatred, thinking only of revenge. I never saw my mother again; and every day I plotted new ways to murder my father. But I was young and inexperienced; my plans lacked substance. I could not do what I longed most to see done. So I grew up alongside the man; hating, hated, and treated like an unwanted dog. I lived in contempt of myself under the ever-sickening umbrella and influence of pirates and whores; and the repulsive stench of decay that was my father's inn, The Lorelei."
Again, Lucas paused, remembering many years of abuse at the hands of his father. "I knew only hate and fear," he told her. "I was reckless, angry, and only living to numb my senses until the opportunity I craved arose." A peculiar smile crossed his lips as he continued, "And then in 1825, twelve years after my father killed my mother, the wheels of change and a web of unthinkable secrets converged one night in Rye. That's where the story really begins…"
Lucas remembered standing in the music room of an elegant manor, baring his fangs, screaming in rage to shake the heavens around him. He was surrounded by the remains of a bloody rampage that had left countless dead. One woman, torn and covered in blood, had a black wooden stake driven through her heart. Her corpse slumbered next to the shell of a shattered grand piano. Other nameless victims lay dead and discarded carelessly across the room.
"No," Lucas interrupted his narrative. "That is where the story ended, not where it began. To be fair to us all, it began one year earlier. And whether you want to hear it or not, this will tell you everything you need to know…"
~ 2 ~ RYE, ENGLAND: 1824
The sea bordered Rye like a great dark angel, surrounding it with arms of fog. Wooden ships swayed in port, rocking with the eternal unrest of the sea. They brushed against the rotting piers, wood striking wood, like an army of corpses knocking on the lids of their coffins, trying unsuccessfully to escape. Tall narrow houses stood closely knit together on the intimate village streets. Lanterns hung from windows casting eerie glows, like forgotten ghosts peering through cobwebbed panes of fingerprint-smudged glass. The smell of salt was in the air; but worse than that, the smell of blood was in the air. Dark figures were known to come and go between the village, the ports, and the forest. The seashore had a skill for attracting - or trapping - undesirables. Whispered rumors spoke of evil things that also walked the shores and forests of Rye. These instruments of dread were said to be from the "other world." Superstition clutched the villagers in fear, and the pirates and smugglers who made Rye their perpetual stomping ground were all too happy to take advantage of those fears. As long as there was illegal money to be made on the sea, there were going to be pirates and smugglers in Rye. Many of them stopped at the Lorelei's Call on Mermaid Lane; the pub owned by Lucas's father, John Grey. The two story building offered them food, drink, guest rooms, brothel, and other dealings best done only behind closed doors. Grey had transformed the Inn into a concise vision of pleasure, sin, and death.
A crescent moon hung in the evening sky. Standing breathless in the shadows of the forest, a young man watched the Inn with haunted eyes. His dark Spanish features were pale with fear. Roberto, an old friend of Lucas Grey's, had vanished several months earlier in search of romance and adventure. Both quests had gone horribly wrong. Roberto bent over, breathless, staring at the Inn, wondering if Lucas were inside tonight. Roberto's shirt was covered in blood. He inhaled deeply just before a large window at the Inn exploded outward unexpectedly with a crash.
 Macbeth, a petty thief, was flung from the bar. He fell with a curse and a thud as he struck the ground. After making sure no bones were broken, he withdrew several small shards of glass from his skin and flung them with contempt at the broken window. He pulled himself to his feet and stood with a crooked back; a permanent sneer etched across his scarred thin face. Greasy hair covered his eyes; he brushed it aside, and pointed a long splinter of glass toward the Inn. The silhouette of a menacing man in a cloak watched from the remains of the shattered window.
Macbeth warned him, "I'm not as stupid as you think. I'll put a bullet in your only eye."
The dark figure in the window stared with indifference, like a statue. His misshapen lip had a strange scar, as if someone had torn a fishhook through his flesh. A tattoo of a snake wrapped around a blind yellow eye he had received as a souvenir of occupational hazards. A scar ran up his cheek and cut through the center of the dead pupil, extending into his eyebrow. His dead eye was the eye of an assassin. And a reptile. The man, Hugh Madden, was more commonly known as "SnakeEye." His reputation for coldness, power, and action preceded him. He was feared by all; including Macbeth, despite his bold taunts. Macbeth had failed to deliver an item he had promised, and SnakeEye always got what he was due.
Having received no discernable response from SnakeEye, Macbeth cursed again. "God damn you, you're not as strong as you think. You wait."
SnakeEye sniffed the air and detected a strange scent on the wind. Although he could not see Roberto leaning against a tree in the shadow of the nearby forest, he sensed his presence and stared off into the darkness.
Macbeth, irritated by SnakeEye's lack of interest, cursed a final time and stumbled away; tripping over a circle of stone which surrounded a man-made well full of rain water. Feeling foolish for stumbling, he cursed himself and kicked at the stones on the ground as he tried to find his horse. His eyes were blinded with fury.
~ 3 ~ THE LORELEI
Lucas Grey had grown from a vengeful child of nine to a callous young man of twenty. Thin, wiry, sporting a goatee and long disheveled hair, he had often wanted to run away and join the disreputable legions which came into port. Countless sailors, smugglers, and pirates had tried to convince him to do just that. He was strong enough, and he could out-drink any of them, but his heart held him back. His destiny was here. His obsession was here. He would one day face his father, when the time was right to deliver his overdue revenge. He would have acted sooner, he told himself, if it were not for the frequent feeling of an invisible hand pulling him back, guiding him, directing him. He told himself that this was not fear. There was something else in these parts that had taken an interest in him. Perhaps, he often mused, it was the ghost of his mother, watching over him, advising when the time would be best for vengeance.
Not knowing his missing friend lurked outside, Lucas was marking off time, having another careless night of debauchery. He was drinking with some sailors, making petty gambles about who could consume the most. He finished another round of ale along with two yellow-faced men in uniforms of the Queen's navy. They slammed their empty tankards on the table, the three of them, and threw a few more gold coins into a copper ashtray in the center. The pot was growing high. Their competition had gained several interested onlookers who were placing their own bets on who would be the last man standing.
Lucas called out cheerfully, careful not to slur his words, "Rosie! Another round!"
 John Grey, Lucas's father and owner of the Inn, watched from the bar with distaste. He cleaned a brass mug and scowled at his son and the sailors. Grey was angry, ugly, and red-faced. His balding head sported pudgy mottled cheeks, reddish tufts of hair, and long chopstick sideburns, making him look like a comical idiot. His appearance, however, concealed a man known to excel in cruelty and keen business-sense, to counterbalance his seeming lack of intelligence.
Lucas opened his mouth as if baring the fangs of a wild beast. He hissed wildly into the faces of his opponents, while a crowd rallied around them and cheered. Proudly, Lucas looked from face to face, admired by men and women alike for his flamboyant impulsiveness. SnakeEye was staring at him curiously from beside the broken window, evaluating the young man. The gaze made Lucas uncomfortable, and he was pleased to see Rosie appearing with a suitable distraction, a new tray of drinks. Holding a wheel-shaped wooden platter above her head, Rosie balanced the three full tankards of ale as she danced toward the table. One random foot struck out deliberately to trip her, as a drunken joke. Lucas saw the drinks flying through the air. He let them fall. He leaned quickly to one side and caught Rosie, pulling her safely to his side. "We can replace the drinks more easily than we can replace you," he told her sweetly with a smile. She blushed and kissed his cheek. The onlookers cheered while Lucas sought the man who had done this to her. He found the face of a weasel-eyed predator, too drunk for reason. The two men stared at one another, each contemplating who might make the first move. Neither man budged as the crowd became quiet and tense. Rosie broke the silence by announcing, "Let's not let the party end over one small stumble. I'll get you some more beer." The tension dissipated, and the atmosphere of festivity returned.
SnakeEye, who had watched the standoff with interest, returned to his seat. He brushed the broken glass of the shattered window from the rim of his mug, unconcerned with the few sparkling shards that remained. He raised the mug to his lips; and as he drank, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His eyes remained unsettlingly constant on Lucas.
Before Rosie could return with more ale, the door to the Inn swung open, slapping hard against the wall. A burst of wind announced an uninvited guest. SnakeEye, Lucas, and the others turned to face the door. Many had expected it to be Macbeth returning with a gun or a gang to challenge SnakeEye. When they saw a young man framed in the doorway, shaking like a frightened dog, they lost interest. Everyone, except for Lucas, went back to what they were doing. Lucas instantly recognized his old friend, Roberto. Concerned about the blood covering the front of the young man's shirt, he ran to his side to help.
The sailors who had been challenging Lucas to the drinking game muttered that they had won the bet by default, since Lucas had left the competition. They collected the pot of coins in the center of the table, splitting it between themselves, laughing while jingling the coins for all to see.
Pulling Roberto aside, Lucas scanned the bloody shirt with grave concern, looking for wounds. He could find none. "Roberto. My God. What happened to you? Where have you been? Are you hurt? What is this? Why are you covered in blood?"
Roberto fidgeted nervously, his eyes darting around the room, fearful of enemies, trusting no one.
Concerned by his friend's silence, Lucas lowered his voice and asked, "Whose blood is that? Did you hurt someone? Tell me. I can help you."
Roberto quivered silently, listening to the wind blowing through the night. Something was drawing closer. He could feel it.
Lucas grabbed his elbow and tried to lead him to a table. "Let's a get a drink in you and get to the bottom of this." Lucas had an inhuman appetite where drinking was concerned.
Roberto shook his head fearfully. Whispering quickly, he told Lucas, "We have to talk in private. Someone is coming."
Trying to make light of Roberto's concern, Lucas grinned and again dragged him toward a table in the center of the Inn. "If someone is after you, then the safest place is the middle of a crowd. No one would touch you there."
Breaking free, Roberto argued, "No. It's not like that." He looked into Lucas's eyes and saw that his friend was suffering from the unnatural confidence that results from consuming too much alcohol. Knowing that reasoning with Lucas was out of the question, he spied a table in the back; away from the door, away from the windows. "There," he motioned. "We'll sit there. I don't have much time. I didn't know where else to go."
Once seated, Lucas motioned to Rosie to bring a round of beers, specifically for the two of them. With a smile on his face that served a sharp contrast to the trembling scowl on Roberto's lip, Lucas began to drill his friend for information. "Tell me everything. Where have you been? What's with...?" He looked again at the bloody shirt and the strange demeanor of his once lively partner.
Roberto paused to listen to the sounds in the forest, fidgeting nervously. "I met a girl."
Lucas let the words take hold as he glanced at the blood on his friend's shirt. Afraid Roberto may have done something to her, he whispered, "Something hasn't happened to her…?"
Rosie brought the tray and noticed the blood. By now, Lucas had become serious. She delivered the drinks, unsure what to say to Roberto. Her smile vanished as she waited awkwardly. Roberto did not meet her eyes. He stared at his fingertips becoming white as he pressed hard on the table. Rosie left in silence.
Roberto slumped back in his chair, enveloped by shadows. He began, "She…" He took a half-hearted drink of his ale and became silent once more.
Lucas became increasingly serious, finding himself sobering quickly. "This isn't you. You have to tell me what happened. Is she alright? Who is she? Where is she now?"
Roberto looked out the windows across the room, spying the moon. A dark cloud passed over the yellow eye as another blast of wind poured through the broken glass.
 SnakeEye took out a sharp thin knife and began to whittle decorative runes into a thin piece of bone.
John Grey looked at the broken window, adding up the cost in his head. He watched SnakeEye, and the knife that moved so carefully and methodically in his fingers. Grey's eye twitched, remembering many unpleasant moments between him and the one-eyed legend. SnakeEye had been involved with many people for many reasons spanning many years and many nations. Although making an impressive ally, such an allegiance was undoubtedly dubious, since most of those who had partnered with SnakeEye died painful premature deaths.
Roberto, as if kissing the table, dropped his face close to the blackened cigar burns in the wooden tabletop and lowered his voice. "I was seeing this girl. It was strange, si ? A good time, of sorts. For a while. I suppose... and then ..." Roberto did not know how to finish his sentence.
Lucas wanted details. "What? Get to the point! Did she die? Is she having your child? What?!"
Cold, fearful eyes darted across Lucas's face, as Roberto replied, shaking his head with gravity, "Dios… I can't even imagine... "
More impatient, raising his voice, Lucas demanded, "Then what? What's going on?"
Lowering his voice even more to a hoarse whisper, Roberto told him, "See… I don't know how to explain. Yesterday, I would say this can't be so. But today... the world I knew is no longer here."
"You're not making any sense."
Roberto found Lucas's eyes and locked his own upon them. He held up a finger for attention. With a sharply accented whisper, he told Lucas, "Listen. I found out about --- dark-house --- si ?"
Irritated by the air of mystery and unsolvable riddles, Lucas blurted out in frustration, "What the hell is dark-house?"
Roberto threw a panicked hand over Lucas's mouth to quiet him, glancing nervously around the bar to see if anyone's attention had been attracted.
SnakeEye slipped with his knife, making a tiny slice in his finger. He licked the blood from the wound as he cast a curious glance toward the table with Lucas and Roberto.
~ 4 ~ DELIDAKIS MANOR
 The Delidakis Manor was the most impressive and foreboding residence in the neighboring village of Rye Channel. Owned by the infamous shipbuilder, Stelios Delidakis, the manor sat high and with great ceremony on a large grassy hill. It overlooked a river in the rear, the ocean to one side, forest and stables, and the shipbuilding company down the road from the front of the house. Made of dark wood and large stones that had collected ivy and moss, the house had become a strange sentinel, like a blind man guarding a treasure. The road leading to the house gave a misleading impression of its size, making it appear only as large as many other mansions, but not revealing the two wings which branched off in the rear, embracing the family cemetery. Candlelight and oil lamps glowed through the windows. The curtains inside the house blew lightly from drafts in the panes of glass, as if swayed by unseen ghosts. Trees and ancient stone walls surrounded it like skeletal warriors, condemned to keep watch against their will.
Stelios had inherited the house from the Irish part of his wife's family, a bloodline that was now extinct. His wife, Prytania, was also half-Greek. She had met and fallen in love with her husband at a young age while living with her own father in Greece. Shortly after they married, they inherited the family mansion and Stelios took control of the nearby shipyard. His knowledge of the sea, sense of business, and desire for discipline made him a successful leader. It also put him at odds on more than one occasion with his wife; and with the notorious tavern owner, John Grey.
Delidakis was a man of order, rules, and sensibility. It was merely a part of that order that dictated that crimes, such as smuggling and murder, be a necessary part of his affairs. Over time, the love in his marriage had cooled, as his wife had failed to produce him a son; and their ideologies seemed to take increasingly different paths. But they did raise two children, two teenage daughters that they both loved in different ways. Lyssa, a pale frail ghost of a girl, was the older sister at nineteen. Penumbra, who was beautiful, vibrant, petulant, and the baby by two years, was soon to be seventeen.
On this night, while Lucas tried to learn the source of Roberto's fear, the two sisters were in a small room with a large dark closet and a grotesquely decorated door. They nervously held their breath. There was only blackness, and the sound of whispering teenagers. Lyssa was dangerously thin, her skin pulled pale and taut. She kept her long dark hair tied up tight and braided close to her head. It was curly, short, and boyish. Even wearing a flimsy bit of gauze she called a nightgown, her figure was virtually sexless, defying her gender. Penumbra secretly practiced puckering her lips in the darkness, knowing they were full and seductive. Her eyes were large and innocent, yet full of some dark, unspoken wisdom. Looking nothing like Lyssa, she had the perfection of a China doll, transformed into flesh. Her older sister was already jealous of her younger, fuller figure.
Lyssa begged her, stuttering as she always did, "Do it again, like you d-did before."
Penumbra hesitated nervously, trembling slightly, taking deep calming breaths.
Anxiously Lyssa plodded, "Why are you w-waiting? Light the candle!"
A match struck in the darkness, giving birth to tiny dancing children of fire. The shadowy faces of the girls appeared in the smoky black glass of a large oval mirror hanging on the wall. The scrying mirror, an antique passed down to them from their great-great-grandmother, was designed with black glass. It had a convex curve and a beautiful ornate frame which - upon closer examination - revealed strange Celtic symbols that meant nothing to most. Scrying was the great art of divination. Some people used crystal balls. Others used pools of water. And others, like the Delidakis sisters, used a special mirror. A shelf along the back wall of the closet revealed the shadows of strange small artifacts, bottles, and phials of multi-colored suspension liquids. Penumbra held the candle with both hands, momentarily acting obscene, wondering if her sister realized what she was doing.
Lyssa encouraged her to continue. "Why are y-you waiting?"
Penumbra grinned and her fingers trembled as she stared past the flame into the dark glass. Lyssa watched her, a twisted dry smile cracking across her parched lips as Penumbra began to moan, as if entering a trance. Penumbra's eyes began to flutter and roll upward.
~ 5 ~ THE LORELEI
From inside the Inn, Lucas could hear the sound of approaching horses. The hoofs of several beasts slapped the cold earth with a heavy clop, clop, clop. Dark animals whinnied, out of breath, as they stopped outside.
"I made a terrible mistake," Roberto began to tell Lucas, suddenly rising to his feet. "I shouldn't have come." Roberto began breathing heavily and looked at the front door with fear. He started wiping at the stain on his shirt, as if trying to wipe away any sign of the blood.
Lucas saw the desperation on his friend's face amplified by the sound of the horses. Lucas told him, "I can get you out of here; through the back or the basement." He tried to joke, "Anytime you find pirates and smugglers, you know there are tunnels and secret rooms…"
But Roberto was not listening to Lucas. He could hear splinters of voices coming from outside. Certain ominous words seemed to slice through the crowded Inn and find his ears: "End; Accountable; Sacrificial; Defiler." Roberto was frozen in place. His voice began to rise to a high-pitched whisper, bordering on the hysterical. "I didn't do anything. I swear... I just ..." He began to panic. His eyes darted to the door with terrified anticipation.
Lucas looked at the door and stood up, sensing the danger. "That's it. We're going." He put his arm on his friend's shoulder and started to turn him around, facing the back of the Inn.
 The door to the Inn burst open with another foreboding crash. All eyes in the Inn twisted suddenly to face the door, but this time the silence remained. In the doorway, silhouetted by the splinter of light from the moon, there stood four large Horsemen. They wore black cloaks and gloves, with white bandage-like cloths wrapped around their faces, necks, and hair. They were dark, wet, and dirty; like zombies recently raised from the grave. Their clothes covered them completely except for uneven holes cut out for their eyes, which hid in shadows. They wore tattered three-cornered hats; and they appeared drenched, as if they had recently come through a storm of red rain. They noticed SnakeEye at the table by the window and hesitated, as if wondering if he were going to be a problem. SnakeEye stared, surprised by their appearance, but otherwise making no sign that he intended to interfere. Satisfied, the lead Horseman spotted Roberto in the crowd and began to advance in silence, with ominous deliberation.
The local patrons climbed over one another to give them room to pass; afraid to obstruct them, afraid to breathe, afraid to talk in their presence. Women and men crossed themselves as the Horsemen passed. Until tonight, they had been nothing more than a rumor for almost everyone at the Lorelei. The Horsemen had been a ghost-story to frighten disobedient children. To the Irish, they were known as the Dullahan; and to most others, they were known as The Headless Horsemen. Their appearance meant that they had most likely risen from the grave to collect the debt of death. John Grey watched with shocked dismay at their unexpected visit, not sure how to respond to their presence. He glanced at SnakeEye to see if the deadly mercenary had anything to do with the arrival. He could tell that SnakeEye was as surprised to see them as he. Neither man made a move to interfere.
"Go!" Lucas whispered in oblivious defiance, pushing Roberto toward the back of the Inn. But Roberto trembled and fell to the floor. Kneeling on his hands and knees, he whimpered and closed his eyes, muttering a prayer in Spanish. Frustrated by his friend's resignation, Lucas reached down, grabbed him, and tried to haul him to his feet again. Keeping one eye on the advancing Horsemen, Lucas shouted,
"Move! NOW!"
Roberto reluctantly stood, clinging to Lucas, whispering to his friend, "You don't understand. There's nowhere to run, si ? They find me. The headless horsemen. They come! They come!"
Letting go of Roberto, Lucas looked at the Horsemen and sneered at their costumes, unafraid. "The heads look fairly well attached to me! Maybe we should test that theory!" He stepped in front of his friend, creating a feeble wall between Roberto and the Horsemen.
Roberto's eyes became dead, entranced. A spectral memory, an alluring waif, begged him from his terror-stricken memories. "Who do you love?" she whispered. "Who do you love more than life?"
A viselike grip suddenly yanked Lucas's arm, pulling him aside. Startled, Lucas struggled, unable to break free. SnakeEye was holding him still, growling quietly in his ear, "This is not your battle."
Lucas uttered a muted bark, "Let me go!"
The vigilante Horsemen grabbed Roberto. He fell into their arms like an abandoned marionette. They dragged him away; his head hung low as if his life had already fled from his body. As the Horsemen pulled him toward the door, while the normally aggressive patrons of the Inn cowered in silence and curiosity, Lucas continued to struggle with SnakeEye. He shouted at the vigilantes, "What are you doing? Who are you?! Somebody help him! Leave him alone! Let me go!"
Once Roberto smelled the wet dirt at his feet outside the Inn, he began to scream with desperation, knowing the end was near. "No! Please! Help me! Dios, me salva…me salva ! "
SnakeEye grunted cryptically in Lucas's ear, "The minute they walked through this door, it was already done."
Struggling more fiercely than before, Lucas ignored him and shouted, "Let me go! I have to help my friend! I have to do something!"
To his surprise, SnakeEye released his grip. But before Lucas could escape, SnakeEye detained him briefly once more, telling him, "Nothing is ever what it seems. Don't ruin your life for his. He may deserve what follows."
Lucas sneered, "Well what if he doesn't?" He brushed SnakeEye's hand off his shoulder and ran outside.
~ 6 ~ DELIDAKIS MANOR
 Penumbra eyed her reflection in the large black mirror in the darkened closet. It was surrounded by a dizzying swirl of amber smoke from the sparkling candle she held. The flickering light from the flame reacted with the imperfections in the glass, creating the illusion of motion in the mirror. Dark things seemed to be swirling around the girls on the other side of the glass, surrounding their reflection with dark faeries and the faces of the unknown dead. Lyssa, with wide vacant eyes, stood behind her sister watching. Entranced. Expectant.
Penumbra began to intone an enigmatic recitation, as if possessed, her voice low and chilling; "The father of your child shall fall before Christ, as if struck by the hand of God; never to be stopped; evolving evil, evading death. But the love of his love shall live forever ..."
Lyssa pressed her breasts against Penumbra's back and touched her sister's shoulders, massaging them with a slow, perversely sensual motion. Penumbra, startled by the contact, emitted a slight gasp and stopped speaking. She opened her eyes and looked at her sister's fingers. Guiltily, Lyssa removed them, and increased the distance between the two of them, disappointed that the prophecy had been interrupted.
Wishing to break the awkwardness that had blanketed the two girls, Lyssa whispered, "You know… Lord Byron s-said: truth is always strange; stranger than fiction. He w-was right."
~ 7 ~ THE LORELEI
Outside the Lorelei, a mist clung to the ground under the feet of the Horsemen and their horses. Roberto lay crumpled like a broken toy, sobbing breathlessly. His screams of despair had given way to resigned hopelessness. The Horsemen were binding his hands behind his back when Lucas stepped outside, beneath the gnarly branches of blackened trees. Oil lamps flickered in the shadows. The Horsemen seemed unearthly and terrifying in this light. They paused, like startled ants whose quest was discovered, and stared at Lucas. For a moment, it seemed as if they were waiting for him to do something. Lucas mustered the courage to warn them weakly, "Let him go." His voice sounded frail, even to his own ears. The Horsemen were not impressed either. They resumed binding Roberto without another word.
Lucas saw SnakeEye watching from inside the Inn; but he knew the dark-legend was not about to help. Lucas scanned the ground for weapons, hoping to find something useful: such as a metal rod, heavy branches, discarded knives or - better yet - a loaded pistol. Nothing. There were no weapons within reach. He knew he could not fight them by hand. At best he would be a match for one, not four. Not sure what else to try, he argued with them once more, "Why are you doing this? I'll pay you. Do you want money? What do you want?" The Horsemen paused long enough to look at one another. The masks concealed their expressions, but Lucas could tell that they were laughing at him. He stepped forward, trying to stave off the inevitable. He thought, if he could get them to stall long enough, perhaps someone else might appear who would be willing to help. He began to have flashbacks of himself as a child, staring in fear as his mother was dragged away. He had done nothing to prevent her death.
From inside the Lorelei, John Grey looked out the window. An unseemly associate named Beckwith approached, gesturing outside to the Horsemen. He whispered in Grey's ear, "St. Regis was found dead near the docks. Fowler interrupted whoever killed him. Saw the shadow, but couldn't make out who it was."
Grey sneered. "St. Regis had a lot of enemies. It was only a matter of time."
Without emotion or bravado; "His body was drained of blood."
Grey squinted at the revelation, knowing more than he cared to admit. He began to ask, "Was it…?" He bared his teeth like a rabid beast.
The other man shook his head and made a slicing gesture from navel to his neck. "Cut and gutted, like a fish." He turned his attention once more to the Horsemen outside the Inn.
Grey followed his gaze. He watched his son confronting the vigilantes. Patting his associate on the shoulder, he thanked him for the information.
Beckwith motioned to Lucas, "Going to do anything?"
Grey downed a drink, and took a deep breath. With great resolve, he wiped his wet hands on his smock, removed it, and carelessly pulled it over his head. Throwing it on the bar, he slipped away upstairs; to the comfort and quiet of his office at the back of the second floor. He shut the door loudly behind him. Beckwith grunted and grabbed a beer from a tray; amused, indifferent, and disgusted all in the same disconnected laugh.
If Lucas had known his father had abandoned him in his time of need, he would not have been surprised. He was used to this. Instead, he stood, defiant and determined; a man whose only plan was to stand his ground. Lucas hoped that his attempt at confidence might turn the tides in his favor. Roberto watched his friend's resolve and smiled, encouraged by it. "Let me go," he bargained. "I go away, si ? You never see me again," he told them.
The leader of the Horseman ignored Roberto and walked up to Lucas. His voice was low and gravelly, as if he had been feeding for centuries on maggots, dirt, and blood. "You don't look like a typical hero. Heroes die."
Recognizing the renewed danger, Roberto began to beg once more, this time for his friend, "This is not to do with him. He is only to try to help. He knows no thing."
The words of the girl Roberto had met returned to haunt him, forcing their way to the front of his few remaining thoughts. "What would you sacrifice for love?" she asked. Roberto choked on his own spit.
The leader of the Horsemen reached out and grabbed Lucas's chin. The gloved hand smelled like a charnel house. The fingers were like a vice crushing on Lucas's bone. With his dank, gloved hand, the Horseman turned Lucas's face back and forth, as if looking for something hidden in his skin.
Through gritted teeth, Lucas warned him defiantly, "You don't know who I am."
The Horseman laughed at a private joke. "Neither do you."
Before Lucas had time to consider the riddle, the Horseman released him and struck him across the face with the back of his gloved hand. The heavy hard hand could have been a flat brick. Lucas fell with a startled grunt to the misty earth, his vision doubled, his head pounding. The ornate crucifix his mother had given him slipped from beneath his shirt and dangled on the dirt. The Horseman saw it, tore it loose, and pocketed it as a souvenir; then grabbed the boy's arms and pulled them behind his back. He hauled him painfully to his knees then dragged Lucas like a disobedient dog to where his friend was being held near the well.
Lucas could not see through the blood streaming down his eyes from the cut on his forehead. He blinked and squinted, trying to clear his vision. The hot sticky fluid burned his eyes and made his eyelashes stick together uncomfortably, pricking his eyes like pins. He struggled to break free of the iron grip. He heard Roberto utter a terrified cry, "No Don't!" It was followed by an ominous splash.
The Horseman forced Lucas over the well. He wiped the blood from Lucas's eyes so that he could witness Roberto struggling beneath the water. His friend's hands were bound behind his back. He bobbed like a wet cork, briefly getting his nose above the surface long enough to steal a teasing gasp of air. Another Horseman mercilessly reached down, holding his hand flat, just above the surface of the water so that Roberto could not rise up for a second breath of air.
Lucas locked eyes with his terrified friend while Roberto clung desperately to his last breath. Lucas shouted and cursed. He struggled to free himself from the hold of his captor, knowing he had already failed his friend. He twisted and writhed until he felt his right shoulder wrench out of its socket. Intense pain sliced through his body. He thought he had seen a slash of white light inside his head. Worse than the pain was the knowledge that he would never save his friend.
The air bubbling to the surface of the well tapered off and disappeared. The moonlight reflecting on the surface of the water gradually became settled. Roberto's body had transformed from a young man who loved life, to nothing more than a gentle weed of flesh, floating in the dark still water. The Horseman released his grip and the corpse sunk down into the well, its lungs now filled completely with water.
Lucas noticed SnakeEye, still standing by the broken window, watching without expression. SnakeEye shook his head slightly, perhaps saddened by the outcome of the confrontation, but more likely silently advising Lucas not to make any more trouble. Lucas knew SnakeEye by legend, and by his many visits to his father's Inn, but he had never had a direct dealing with him before tonight. Lucas stopped struggling. For some reason, he sensed that he and SnakeEye were about to learn one another's mysteries. Looking once again at the well, guilt pressed down on Lucas; a heavy invisible weight made him feel hot and cold at the same time. He had betrayed his friend, by failing to act with enough conviction. He had thought too much and fought too little. The battle ended with no resistance. Roberto was gone. Lucas had lost. Once again, his mother had died in his presence, while he had hidden behind the crack of a closed dark door.
The vigilante released his grip and let Lucas fall to the ground.
Three of the Horsemen mounted their horses and rode off, one by one, into the shadows. The last Horseman, the leader, mounted his steed and trotted several times around Lucas. He looked down with amusement at the broken young man, as if sizing him up, "You've got the devil in you. We'll see you around, boy." He cracked his whip, and shouted, "G'yet!" His horse raced off to join the others in the dark anonymity of the haunted misty forest.
[ to be continued ]
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